Sileshanea
General information Spoken by the Aquakin, a tribe from an earth not unlike our own, who share the ability of hydrokinesis. Although spoken in a parallel universe with no ties to ours (and yet somehow it's languages can be written here), it has been speculated that it bears some similarities to the languages of our world. Phonology: Hawaiian and Latin; fricatives, vowels, nasals and approximates to imitate the sound of water Grammar: Finnish and Latin; agglutinating>inflecting Vocabulary: Irish Gaelic, Hawaiian and Hebrew; many meanings for each word, relies on context, as with hawaiian Script: reverse abugida - different symbols for each vowel, diacritics for consonants The name literally means, in proto-sileshanea, a collection of songs: shanā - to sing le - result of action si - collection of ea - abstract noun ending Phonology Consonants The symbols given above are those used in transliterating to the latin alphabet u and i are sometimes realised as approximates, voiced labial-velar and palatal respectively Vowels Alphabet Phonotactics The following diphthongs are allowed: ei ai oi au eu t can be realised as any stop, but it is usually alveolar Syllable structure is ©V(n), However, under certain circumstances (e.g case ending with final a dropped, plural) a word can end in r, l or sh There is a simple tone/pitch accent system, similar to Japanese, where each syllable can carry either a high of low tone. Grammar Both transitive and intransitive verbs conjugate according to subject, as in Nom-Acc langs. However, cases are Ergative - that is, subject of an intransitive verb is in the absolute, as is the object of a transitive verb, while the subject of a transitive verb takes the ergative case. Verbs: end in -i prefixes for meaning changes, suffixes for grammatical indications Tenses: present (assumed) - the action is happening now past - one did it, even earlier today future - one will do it removed - ancient history, storytelling Aspects: simple (assumed) habitual - happens over and over again completed - one has done it ongoing - one is doing it beginning (inc about to begin) - about to happen Moods: emphatic - (ONE DOES IT) indicative (assumed) - conditional - (If one does it, then...) imperative - (I order one to do it) subjunctive - (it isn't certain whether one is doing it or not) opiative - (one wants to do it) debitive - (one must do it) order of suffixes is tense, aspect then mood Intransitive verbs conjugate for subject, with either optional pronoun, or noun in abs case transitive verbs with no subject and a noun as object do not conjugate, and have the noun in the correct case transitive verbs with no subject and a pronoun as object conjugate for object (same endings as for subject) with the suffix zai Nouns: end in -a suffixes/inflect for cases Cases: absolute (the dog does something, has something done to it) ergative (the dog does something) gen (possesive) (the cat belongs to the dog) gen (partitive) (some of the dog) dat (inc moving to) (it was given to the dog, the cat ran to the dog) abl (true, not latin) (the cat ran from the dog) loc (located at) (the cat ran around near/at the dog) instr (the cat did it by using the dog) vocative (O dog!) equative (the cat ran to the fox, which was equal to the dog. (the dog's equal, the dog's equivalent, sometimes even doglike) causative (the dog caused the cat to run) All nouns belong to classes/declensions i - women/female sentient e - abstract nouns a - real life objects o - live objects (plants, animals) u - men/male sentient But sometimes endings can be changed to change meaning, eg. ball - faxla fāli - fat woman fāle - sphere? fālo - mushroom? pig? fālu - fat man Singular, dual/collective plural, plural dual - a>e (last consonant voiced?) plural - a>ēsh endings: a - definite object ē - dual, collective plural, indefinite object - - (a/the/doesn't matter) used more often than in english esh - plural adding n to the end of a word or affix indicates negation Adjectives Same as nouns but end in o rather than a, which is pluralised to osh. There is no dual/collective plural, so an adjective agreeing with a noun of this form will simply be in plural form. Must agree in case, gender and number with the noun they describe Possesive adjectives are based on the letters for pronouns, but with a difference between pertaining to, and owned by. One of them (to be determined at a later date) begins with a, eg my - mo, amo Where confusion exists: conjunctions end in adverbs end in Vocabulary Example text Category:Languages